September 08 - Just ladies with babies

[pacita]

I thought I'd start a new thread before we run out of space...

Wooo, mammoth post!

ponymum - your HV sounds like she's talking utter tosh. There is a weight chart for bf only babies, the curve isn't so steep. Without taking into account what the HV said and the result on the scales, how do you feel your lo is doing?

Pacita empathy to you, I've had a more unsettled day with dd than usual, she wouldn't even go in moses basket for morning nap which she will often do... and she's super grizzly now after a late nap!

thanks hopefully I'm sure you're right

I would like to establish a better routine but I don't think I can up against this level of shouting from dd. I'd love to know if anyone else is trying to change sleep associations against this level of protest!

bbaby i think its the daytime that is mostly on track, and the evenings and nights that need the work! In the day i guess i do 'force' his naps but i've never considered it a problem- they're still learning to sleep arent they? so i use pushchair or my life saving swing seat and he sleeps well. good luck and just keep saying 'its just a phase'!!

BBaby - chutney making is something I naively imagined myself doing on mat leave before Frank arrived...and even though it means frantic chopping around his crying/feeding/distractingly cute smiling, I'm just not willing to give it up. He probably does get a little ignored tho...

I have, however, accepted that I will not be writing an historical romance novel before I go back to work. Shame I didn't realise this before I ordered several books about the reign of Richard II .

Re: chewing - Tracey Hogg (hmm) recommends freezing a little bit of wash cloth thats been dipped in water for babies to chew on, which would be too small to suffocate with, tho is more for teethers I think.

Away from net for a week now, holidaying in Surrey (which is all of 40 minutes from my home). So looking forward to a change of scenery...

Thanks for the bra advice - I'll wait a bit then. I might be naughty and buy a non-breastfeeding one for a couple of dos at Christmas so I don't feel so frumpy.

One thing though, should I be wearing a bra at night? I can't remember if I did last time, but certainly don't now!

Pacita sound like a growth spurt, I think every baby has unsettled days now and again when you think it's all going wrong - sometimes a sofa day is what we all need!

M has started to self-settle sometimes. Howvwer, it's not something I've worked at - just having 2 kids sometimes she gets put down and left

Hello everyone, I went out with the new Orion sling today and got stopped by 6 random people wanting to comment and admire baby and sling Also, to my eternal delight, after putting Katie down for the night she lay in her cot, cooing and sucking her thumb for ten minutes and then fell asleep! If I didn't have a pounding headache I would have jumped up and down and cheered. We're still having no joy with daytime sleep though, she never manages more than 45 minutes and today it's been more like 30 minutes.

E is being a little grump this evening after too much sleep this afternoon. I met up with the NCT group for coffee and she slept the whole time which did not bode well for this evening . Hoping this will not affect tonight's sleep

Hope you are all ok!

Gosh, i had t asleep on me in the bjorn, and he went from absolutely unconscious to full on screaming for a feed within the space of 3 seconds! he is now feeding furiously.

Sass I live for the day t finds his thumb/fingers. he will use the dummy to chill out, but absolutely will not tolerate it when falling asleep, but he will latch onto his fist (if i put it in his mouth), my finger, my arm, my collarbone.... I suspect it may be the key to him self soothing, hope he manages it soon!

ninja - you don't have to wear a night time bra, but I found they help keep me more comfortable. I don't leak as much and I can lay on my stomach without my boobs hurting. I use these

N woke up at 8am today! Think he was restless during the night so not up at his usual time of 7ish. It was very nice but being a routiner I have no idea how to adjust his feeding and/or sleep. Will stare intentely looking for sleepy signs and see if he'll take a short nap then.

hopefully - how old is T? M has found his fingers over the past 2 weeks (he's 10wo) and I can hear him slurping on them when he wakes in the night for his feed.

DH was settling M down the other night and M actually latched on to DH. DH was shocked to say the least

Hello routiners... just a question. Do you think it's key to get your baby up at the same time each day if you're going to follow a routine? At the moment I let N wake up when he wants. Today it was 8am but this has thrown me a little. Not sure why because he doesn't know he's on a routine! Ha ha.

bbaby I find that whatever time I feed ds2 first thing- usually somewhere between 7.30 and 8.15- he still wants his next feed somewhere between 10.30 and 11 so I'm happy to let him sleep in if he wants as it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Last night he slept all evening in his bed which was great but then woke at 6.30 for 2nd day in a row. I still call that the middle of the night.

I've always let my babies wake up when they want to, but then I only follow a loose routine.

I always think that I like to wake up when I'm good and ready so it's probably the same for lo's.

Baby still sleeping - has slept most of the night, presume is the shock of the vaccinations. Unfortunately her big sister stepped into the breech and spent most of the night calling out to me telling me she was thirsty, not tired etc.

Sorry, just have to have a little rant...
p woke me at 23:50 last night in the middle of a peaceful much needed sleep, to ask if I had some money as he wanted to go out.

Then this morning I woke him around 7am to ask him to hold baby while I sorted dd1 out - he stood over us, so he could hand her back at the earliest opportunity then went back to bed.

Baby went back to sleeping peacefully, but dd1 wanted to play on the cbeebies website - he kept telling us to be quiet and not disturb him - he was taking her to pre school (has to leave at 9am) as he doesn't work on Fridays, and even at 8.40 still wouldn't get up. I'm a little ashamed to say I threw some water over him in the end - how can he think it's ok to stay in bed as long as he likes when I've been awake much of the nigh for the last 8 weeks, and have a toddler to look after too??????? He says he went to bed late - but that's his choice.

Ninja - he can be a great dad when he wants to (although doesn't have much interest in the baby really) though dd1 doesn't want to go anywhere without me at the moment, so that's limiting his chances to do things with her. But I guess I think parenthood isn't something you do well when you feel like it, it's a full time job.

Also, another moan - my period arrived yesterday - I bled for 5 weeks, 3 weeks off, and now here it is, despite bf. But then with dd1 I bled 2 weeks, then af arrived 2 weeks later.

Sorry for me me me post, just wanted to offload

the things you think about while doing a 4am feed ............

normally i'm pretty good at getting to sleep, but last night it was you hopefully occupying my thoughts!!

of course in the middle of the night the world either seems a terrible place or you solve all problems known to woman - (these are of course a lot more relevant than the problems known to man).I was in the latter mood last night

I was thinking about your routine hopefully and that when you have a second child you have to work around your first one, so the routine works around them - like starlight's one. Then I thought that I was too selfish to have a routine for M, because there are things that I want to do in the week.

I wondered if to satisfy your need for a routine you could try and set a routine for YOU rather than T (Starlight was the inspiration for this). Have a structure to your days that fits around an 'ideal' T day but means that you get out and about every day. Plan something for each day that means you'll be sitting when he needs to feed and hope the activity and sleep work themselves around that.

Anyway I'm rambling, and my thouights seemed oh so much more profound as I lay wide awake in bed last night between a fast asleep baby and a snoring husband

Good morning ladies and lets hope it's a good one!

feel lucky with my HV/baby clinic after readin ponymum's post... as soon as I mention a problem re bf, depending who it is, they either refer me to bf group or give advice as one of the hv also works at bf group! they don't judge if you ff, give very good advice there too, but won't tell you forget about bf at first hiccup, they would try and solve the problem first....

well tried living M when she woke up at 4.30, but obviously was a different thing last night... she had 2 extra feeds yesterday, and at 4.30 she was starving, making so much noise, as if she was scared I wasgoing to take boob away!! emptied both sides dry, but took ages to sleep afterwards. since then, though, she only had a few mins of bf around 8... maybe another growth spurt (11wks today)...

Just checked eandz facebook and she's in Abu Dhabi at the monment so that's why no postings.

Ninja funny you should say that - I was talking about something similar with my SIL last week. We agreed that second babies almost always end up on a routine of sorts, especially if older child is at nursery or something.
Re T's routines I am beginning to do more things (am going to go to a baby group at the library next week for example), all of which fortunately fit around his routine, with a teensy bit of flexibility - I am doing as you suggest and just trying to make sure I am in the right place for a feed (he is now so settled in having awake time after a feed and then sleeping that it seems to sort itself out when I'm out and about). LOL at you sitting in bed thinking about some random woman on the internet though! I do that sometimes too...

Splish that sounds crappy - I really feel for those of you with partners or husbands who aren't exactly taking on their fair share of the work. Sounds like yours is very happy to be a great dad, but on the schedule that suits him.

BBaby I have a sort of 'slot' in which I consider it ok for T to wake - if he goes beyond that I wake him, and if he wakes before it I treat it as a night feed. For me that slot is 6:30-8:15am. Anything within than slot seems to mean he either catches up or cuts down on naps during the day, and is pretty much having his bath at 6pm by the time we get to the end of the day. If I leave him till 8:30 he seems to get totally frustrated, and want feeding just as I'm putting him down - I think his body clock has adjusted to a vague pattern already, and gets a little thrown if things are totally out.

ILTMIMI T is just 9 weeks. He's not got great coordination yet, but I can see it is improving. If he found his fingers in the next week I would be thrilled (and shocked), but I'm hoping he'll at least manage some finger sucking over the next month. He is currently asleep with one arm unswaddled (I figure he's never going to suck his fingers if he's still fully swaddled). I have a vague aim to get him out of his swaddling by 12 weeks, but he is quite jerky, so it may not happen.

foxy I want to come and live at your house and for you to feed me!! Yum yum your food sounds to die for!

Throwing water splish - tut tut...I have to say it would've been feckin hot coffee from me!!!
You have every right to be annoyed. I sometimes think men forget that it's not just the weeks of newborn that are bloody hard but that this comes AFTER 9 months of feeling sick, tired, upset, huge etc etc etc (Do you remember the struggle to get shoes on when pregnant?), then there's labour and let's face it - has any of us got a good nights sleep since labour? DD is sleeping through the night but I don't as i still wake at her slightest noise.

If men sometimes didn't act like toddlers it would be much easier!
Btw, I'm sure your DP/DH is a lovely person but men sometimes just don't 'get it' do they

splish - really at your P for being such a jerk. It's hard enough even with a totally supportive P/H, so you must be a saint to endure this.

sunflower / starlight - yes I am still seething over the HV, and have been thinking about how it should have been. Why couldn't she say "right, let's solve this problem together, let's write a plan and try xx this week" etc. I guess I am extra as the mum after me had a 4 month old who was losing weight. She was clearly at her wits end crying out for help. The hv just did not engage with her problem and kept saying, "have you tried doing xx? didn't work? oh well" with a shrug and a smile.

So in summary, DD is happy and bright, feeds a lot on demand, has plenty of soiled and wet nappies, and weighs 10 lb 9 oz at 10 weeks. She looks quite small and delicate compared to other babies her age, but absolutely beautiful to me. She generally feeds until 11 pm ish before sleeping through to about 4 am for a feed, then back to sleep until some time 7 - 9 am. We have had painful nipple thrush coming and going since week 5, but just can't shake it. I can keep bf through the pain at its current level, but only through taking lots of drugs (which are not licenced for bf so not comfortable if this is the long term situation!). Am adopting an anti-thrush diet as much as I can. What to do...?